Katya & The Prince of Siam

The sinking of 40 ships of the Russian Navy by the Japanese in May and lack of political reform in Russia, led the sailors of the Battleship Potemkin to rebel in June. However, the rebels lacked unity and organization and the government carried out swift and ruthless reprisals. Even when Russia accepted the mediation of America and the vastly unpopular Russo-Japanese war ended with the signing of the Treaty of Portsmouth (USA) in August 1905, it produced no amelioration in the ominous state of the country. Thus when Katya returned to St Petersburg that autumn, she found a city greatly changed – full of tension and disquieting rumour. However there had been no alteration in the intensity of Chakrabongse’s passionate love.

At their first meeting, worn down by his suffering in her absence and tongue-tied – as so often happens – at seeing embodied in smooth rosy flesh the vision that had haunted him awake and sleeping, Chakrabongse, at a loss for romantic words in which to frame a proposal, suddenly blurted out: ‘Do you dislike electric fans?’ Katya, who had never heard of them, but did not wish to seem ignorant, answered that she liked them immensely. In the highly emotional state in which he had existed since falling so violently in love, her reply to this absurd question seemed positive encouragement and, without further ado, he asked her to marry him and live in Siam, where heat would be tempered by the said electric fans!

Though by now far from indifferent to her tempestuous wooer, Katya still hesitated. Chakrabongse, now a mature twenty-three, not only handsome, high-spirited and brilliantly clever, could also draw on an immense fund of determination to achieve any end on which his mind or heart – in this case both – were set. Not only did he entreat her in person, but he bombarded her daily with letters written from the Winter Palace.

 

My dearest Soulmate Kaya

Can’t you understand that you do not have to doubt my feelings? I don’t need anything but you. If only you can be with me, then everything will be marvellous and nothing can lessen my happiness. There is no question of a lessening in my feelings for you. Simply I have sometimes been afraid to tell you to ask you to be mine. Now if you really love me so much that you are ready to leave with me no matter what, then don’t be afraid, I am sure we will be very happy. We must be in agreement, no matter what, we must hold together.Then we tranquilly can meet the world head on. Only you must remember you’ll have to bear a lot. If you agree then remember we must be as one. Please talk with you brother and make him agree.

Your loving and hopeful

Lekya

 

Such determination made him totally irresistible. Having consulted her dear friend Elizaveta Ivanovna Chrapovitzkaya, and with the proviso that she must have her brother’s consent, Katya finally gave him her promise.

Armed with this, Chakrabongse, after long discussion, persuaded Ivan to agree, but only on condition that his sister’s marriage would be according to the rites of the Russian Orthodox church. Although the university had reopened briefly in September, in mid-October a strike of railway workers had developed into a general strike involving some 1.5 million industrial workers. A Soviet of Factory and Workers representatives had been set up and effectively was in control of St Petersburg. Witnessing such events at first hand and aware of the uncertain future that awaited his headstrong younger sister Ivan must have been more receptive to Chakrabongse’s wishes than he otherwise might have been. Meanwhile, undaunted, his future brother-in-law set about abandoning his Buddhist faith (for the time being) and being received into Katya’s church. Russian Orthodox, Hindu or Islamic, one feels it mattered not, as long as Katya could be his, and letters reveal that, at one point, it was suggested that the marriage might even take place in the German Lutheran church. As for the traditions of the Chakri dynasty, his royal parents who valued him so highly, the ramifications of his responsibilities to them and to the Russian Imperial family, who had regarded him almost as a son, all such considerations had become of no account.